A chance to catch up with photos…

Finally – the last lot of pictures uploaded to Flickr and I can continue where we left off. I think we had covered the veined flava bog, so let’s take a look at the hybrid bog and the BOE (bit of everything) flava bog. The red flava bog will have to wait for later…

Let’s start with the BOE bog… well, it has a bit of everything in it, so it kind of works…

At the front of this bog is a mini-me flava var. rubricorpora. Its actual parentage is (flava x alata) x flava. Like the other red tubed plants in this bog, it has not coloured up with so much red this year. A nice thing about this clone is its huge hood.

Key plants in the BOE bog are the cut throat flava, more correctly known as Sarracenia flava var. rugelli. They are defined by the red “cut throat” blotch at the rear of the throat, and are not supposed to have venation. Just red blotchy markings. The above clone is the plant sold by Paradisea or Collector’s Corner through garden centers. A thing about rugelli is that most clones I have encountered throw no more than two or three pitchers per growing point per season. To get a big clump like you see in books, you need to mass plant them (as in 4+ growing points per pot). To make things worse, most of the rugelli I grow are very sulky plants – they just don’t do well after being repotted. This plant did ok because I lifted it out of its previous pot without disturbing its root ball. The other plants in the bog are very unhappy at the moment (read: deformed pitchers) and are not photogenic at all. I’m looking forward to seeing my plants clump up in years to come.

The above plants are flava var. rubricorpora (red tube flava) from Gordon Hanna. They have put up well formed pitchers despite being repotted (vs. some of the the rugelli clones mentioned above) and should colour up next season.

This plant is probably a flava var. atropurpurea. I brought it from Phil Reytter at the November 2011 AUSCPS meeting as a var. cuprea (ie. coppertop flava). In my opinion, the red extends too far down the pitcher to be a cuprea. Phil sells another plant as var. atropurpurea and, well, it is nowhere near as good as this clone.

On to the hybrid bog…

Its looking good! Most of the plants in here are late summer peaking species, so it keeps me happy when the flava are past their peak.

This flava like plant is one of David Martin’s unnamed hybrids (its label was illegible when I got it). It fills in solidly red as the season progresses. My guess is that it is a flava-purpurea backcross, possibly with FRT 1-1 as a parent. Note also the leucophylla ‘Tarnok’ in the background… they have gutsed themselves silly on hoverflies!

And another unknown David hybrid is this purpurea. David told me that he had no idea what the parentage actually was, but it was such a good plant he kept it.

Among the hybrids are seedlings of S. flava. These tiny plants have some good colour in them!

This leucophylla x psittacina is a John Creevey/Gotcha! Plants cross. It provides a nice contrast with the other plants in the bog that are more red in colour. This plant also has a particular skill in catching butterflies…

To the right of this photo is a David Martin leucophylla hybrid. It is a very nice plant, but I once grew an even better one. We brought it from a seller at the old Caloundra Markets on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, in the mid 1990s. It produced pitchers regularly over the season that were stocky but well marked with white windows that filled in pink. I have seen the grower I got it from at other Sunshine Coast markets selling succulents, so next time I see him I will ask if he still grows it… it would be great to get it back again!

To close, here are some pics showing the proliferation of Drosera binata growing from the hundreds of root cuttings I spread through the bog. They are only small now, but they will eventually grow rather large. Despite their small size they are strong insect catchers – every leaf has something caught on it once unfurled!

Next up – the red flava bog update. Here is a teaser…

The Sarracenia are in full cry! Part 1, the veined garden.

This season is proving to be absolutely fantastic for the Sarracenia! And its not just me who thinks so: fellow Canberra-region grower Owen is also reporting it to be a great season so far. The Sarracenia flava are going absolutely crazy producing beautifully coloured pitchers that are well shaped because winds were not so bad, meaning fewer pitchers desiccating before they had fully opened.

So, here’s some photos to show how the plants are doing. This week, we’ll start with the veined and coppertop flava bog, which is the one at left:

Its pretty packed in there – I may have overplanted it. Time will tell, of course…

A mass of S. flava var. ornata  pitchers, with a couple of photobombing S. flava var. cuprea ‘Gotcha! Heavy vein’ and flava var. maxima at front.

Sarracenia oreophila is adapted to waste no time in spring – it lives in areas where the spring rains are fairly brief. They pack all their energy into a burst of simultaneous growth and flowering, produce some phyllodes and then sit patiently for the following year. They do this irrespective of how wet conditions remain. Being among the first pitchers open mean they are already full – their pitchers start to discolour due to the heavy prey load (I call this indigestion!) and can even burst open like these pitchers did if the load is especially heavy.

Front and centre of this garden is S. flava var. atropurpurea ‘FRT 1-5’, one of David Martin’s red flava. It can annoyingly act like a coppertop some years or fill in solidly red like this year.

This either is or is not a flava var. rugelli (cut throat) depending on how you define the form (ie. veins or no veins). Nonetheless, it is a very spectacular plant for how tight and solidly red its throat is.

More flava var. ornata, or flava var. ornata x oreophila if you are in the VCPS… its amazing how taxonomic interpretation varies between states! But I sincerely think this is a different clone, as the VCPS clone grew differently when I tried it.

Some canoodling S. flava var. maxima…

And a plant that Helmut Kibelis imported as flava “Slack’s Maxima” in the 1980s. It produces only 1-2 pitchers a year and gets really very floppy after being open for a few weeks. I tried planting it right in the middle of the bog in hope that the surrounding pitchers would keep it upright. But there is always one pitcher that manages to find a gap to fall through…

You could be mistaken if you took this plant for another var. maxima. But its not. This var. flava has tiny amounts of red venation if it gets full sun. It can also get really, really tall. Hence why I have dubbed it ’Helmut’s giant’, in honour of Helmut Kibelis who seems to be the originator of it.

This weird looking plant is an annoying one that fits between the two camps that are flava var. cuprea and flava var atropurpurea. It can be very red when it first opens, but then fades to being heavy veined. It came up in a batch of seed germinated by John Creevey, and he gave me a piece of it in 2010. It always produces venation that is really swollen (it looks like it has high blood pressure!), and the very erect lid.

I was given this plant by Ron Abernethy as a flava var. maxima (I got all my maxima from Ron, as no-one in NSW was growing real maxima when I did not have any). It produces one one or two pitchers a year, and they always have the floppy lid. In my experience, they always produce a faint, washed out but persistent copper lid.

Another David Martin flava, this is flava var. cuprea ‘F1’. It was his first plant, and 40 years on, its still powering ahead.

This plant is not particularly good at pitcher production, or very large for that matter. I grow it because I brought it at the 2009 ICPS conference at the Sydney botanic gardens. It was an RSBG stock plant that Greg Bourke originally donated to them. It was also one of the first plants I got when I set about getting my collection together in 2009.

And to close, this fine and heavy veined var. cuprea is from Gotcha! Plants. It can get very big, but it is currently re-grouping after last year’s move into the bog garden. It does tend to sulk for a while after being repotted.

Part 2 will be online soon – it will cover the hybrid and new bog gardens.

A preview of the weekend’s post…

The pitchers are up – and awesome does not come close to how good they are this year! Stand by for a large blog post – or several – on the weekend! There may even be a review of tomorrow’s AUSCPS meeting in Sydney…

A quick post…

Canberra always gets a storm with hail at this time of year – right when the Sarracenia flava are at their best. As the weekends have not been good for photography, I haven’t had a chance to take really good photos. So, with a thunderstorm threatening last Saturday night and again tonight, I quickly took some photos to show how the plants are doing, just in case...

The red flava bog is absolutely stunning – better than I could have ever dreamed when I set it up.

Phil Reytter’s flava var. rubricorpora are absolutely magnificent – huge mouths and tall pitchers.

The various clones of Sarracenia flava var. atropurpurea are of course the stars of the show!

My fave of faves, the beautiful flava var. atropurpurea FRT 1-1 from David Martin.

A hybrid between atropurpurea FRT 1-1 and a flava var. rubricorpora, FRT 1 (both David Martin plants), cross by John Creevey of Gotcha! Plants (thanks again John!!!!)

The flava var. atropurpurea Blackwater S.F. clone

This red x moorei looking thing has Dana’s Delight as one parent, and FRT 1-1 as the other. Hybrid from Gotcha! Plants, Queensland. Its the tallest plant so far this year.

The new bog is settling in but will not perform well for at least another year. Some clones of Sarracenia flava var rugelli in this bog may do not do well for two years, based on my experience with them sulking after repotting.

The general flava bog is looking good – I hope I get to do a study on its plants before we get the inevitable hail.

And they hybrid bog is doing well too.

That’s it for me for this weekend. Hopefully I will get to do a blow-by-blow of each bog garden soon – if I’m lukcy, without hail ruining the show first!

Happy growing till then!